Island in the Storm

6. The Lion’s Pride

Muhammud strode through a strange land, his bare feet crunching across a scree of broken bones. A cloudy veil seemed to mask the heavens, with just a watery and weak sun and a featureless sky offering a twilight to illuminate his path. He knew he was on a journey, but he had forgotten its purpose, it seemed. He had no burden, no companions. . no reason to be here. The only thing that gave meaning to this trek was the one feature in the landscape up ahead; a jagged mountain, impossibly tall and sheer. Mount Otuken, he realised, recognising it as an exaggerated memory of the mount that marked the heart of the ancient Seljuk tribal homelands on the steppes. But without the long grass, the fresh breeze of the plain and the pleasant heat of the sun on his skin that his ancestors had so often told him of, this seemed hollow, meaningless. Yet still he found himself drawn to it like a moth to a flame, for this represented all that it was to be a noble and legendary Seljuk warrior. Here the khagan would adorn himself in yak tails and bright fabrics, then mark a brave man’s face with ox blood and bestow him with his battle name, war drums thundering in the background as all the tribesmen hailed their new heroes. Yet here there was nothing, no sound but the crunching of his feet on the bones, and the mountain seemed to draw no closer no matter how fast he trod.

He stopped, panting. ‘I am Alp Arslan!’ he bellowed to the lonely mountain. His words died with the faintest of echoes. A silence followed and was then pierced by a cackle. He saw a solitary, white-bearded figure on the mountain’s lower slopes. Uncle Tugrul. The Falcon. The sultan before him.

‘Ah, you are tired and weak, Muhammud!’ Tugrul boomed haughtily. ‘I always suspected you would not be strong enough.’

Muhammud shuddered at this and at the wave of self-loathing the words brought. Then anger took over. ‘I have excelled where you failed, Uncle Tugrul. I have swollen our lands and multiplied our armies many times over!’

‘Ah, yes, and now the people call you the Mountain Lion, Alp Arslan. When they stand before you, at least. . but what does Yusuf call you?’

Muhammud could hear the mocking edge to his dead uncle’s voice. Yusuf was one of many who coveted his throne and spread poisoned words about his rule.

‘And tell me this, Mountain Lion; why is it that I stand up here on the mountain of legend and you dwell down there?’

Muhammud, enraged, broke into a run. He sucked in breath after breath and soon his muscles burned and his skin was laced with sweat. At last he came to the foot of the mountain. But when he tried to run up its lower slopes, he slipped and slid back down into the bony scree.

‘Come now, nephew. Did I not teach you how to climb the mountain?’ Tugrul laughed.

Muhammud frowned, then looked around the bones littering the flat ground. Ribs, skulls, femurs and spines, all jumbled together underfoot. Some skulls still wore Seljuk helms, some limbs were clad in rags of Byzantine armour, others in the robes and armour of the enemies he had long ago trampled into the dust; the Ghaznavids, the Daylamids, the Fatimids and the countless hill tribes and desert federations that once ruled the various lands of the now unified Seljuk Sultanate. He looked up at Tugrul, then began piling the bones up to make a ramp. On and on he fetched up the bones until, at last, the ramp was complete, leading right up to where Tugrul waited. He ascended, fixing his uncle with a stern gaze. Yet Tugrul was unperturbed. ‘And what else did I teach you, nephew?’ he crowed.

Muhammud frowned, slowing, just a few steps from stepping onto the mountainside. Spots of rain pattered down around him. No, not rain: thick, dark rivulets of blood. Soon it was a rattling downpour, and a coppery stink permeated the air.

‘What else did I teach you?’ Tugrul repeated, his eyes widening, pointing over Muhammud’s shoulder.

Muhammud froze, hearing a foreign clacking noise over the rattling blood-rain, right behind him. He swung round to see that some bones from the ramp had gathered to form a grinning skeleton, its arm raised and wielding a dagger.

Muhammud gasped and fell, the skeleton falling on top of him and the dagger hacking down for his throat.

His eyes shot open and the nightmarish image faded. . only to be replaced by another, this time all too real.

A foreign face hovered over his. A leathery-skinned, bearded man, clasping a blade. The stranger’s eyes widened and he plunged the blade down. Instinct took over, and Alp Arslan rolled clear of the blow, the blade piercing the pillow. Ostrich feathers filled the air and the assassin wailed in terror, realising he had missed his chance.

‘You dog!’ the sultan snarled. ‘You rabid son of a whore!’ he roared, leaping across the bed and onto the assassin. The pair fell to the floor and he grasped at the man’s wrist, twisting at the dagger-hand with all his strength. The brute who had come to slay him was strong, but his fear seemed to beat him. The dagger blade turned until the tip pointed for the assassin’s chest. Alp Arslan held his gaze, pushing the blade lower, lower, lower. Then the man gasped as the blade ground through his breastbone and sunk into his heart.

Alp Arslan staggered back from the dark pool of blood that spread out under the assassin’s corpse, staining one of the pair of silk carpets on the floor of his fine bedchamber here in the palace at Isfahan. As his breathing began to calm, feathers settled all around him. His long, dark hair was lashed round his neck, stuck there like a noose, and the dangling tails of his moustache were plastered to his face with sweat. Just then, a cluster of guards barged in, spears levelled, switching them this way and that in search of the threat.

‘The danger is gone, you fools!’ he cried at them. They lowered their weapons and averted their eyes. It was then that another figure hobbled in, wincing, clutching at an egg-sized lump on his scarred, shaven scalp.

‘He took me by surprise, my lord,’ Kilic said, dropping to one knee and placing his scimitar against his breast. ‘I have failed you. Give the word and I shall fall upon my sword.’

‘I would, but your blood would sully my silk carpet, and one has already been ruined today. Now put your sword away, you fool,’ Alp Arslan fumed, waving his loyal bodyguard up.

The rather sheepish Kilic rose to his feet, then looked at the body of the assassin.

‘Yusuf’s man?’

‘Doubtless,’ Alp Arslan replied, his nose wrinkling at the thought of the rival who coveted the Seljuk throne. ‘And I am equally certain we will have no trail that leads back to that cur.’

‘But this is not the first time he has tried to — ’

‘For now, we need his armies,’ Alp Arslan cut Kilic off. ‘I will deal with him when the time is right. Now take the body, throw it in the river. I have business to attend to.’

He closed his eyes. In moments, the slithering sound of the bloodied corpse being dragged away faded, and he heard only the squawking of a parakeet from outside. His head thudded mercilessly and he clutched at his temples, turning his bloodshot, foul glare upon the jug of rich red Syrian wine by his bedside. It had been tart and invigorating when he started it the previous evening, washing away the headaches of many hours of planning. But it had become tasteless before long, and it numbed his mind as quickly as it had numbed his tongue. If those nightmares were the outcome of such indulgence, he seethed, then he would avoid it in future. He contemplated the notion for a moment before rubbishing it, knowing it was the only way he could rid his mind of troubles.

He knotted his hair upon the nape of his neck and slipped on a green yalma, the garment absorbing the moisture from his skin, then he strode out of the arched end of the bedchamber and rested his palms on the balcony edge. Grape and ivy vines snaked across the enclosed, vividly tiled courtyard, baking in the March noon sun. He breathed deeply and enjoyed the warmth on his skin, then glanced down to the babbling marble fountain in the centre of the courtyard, nestling in the shade of a cluster of orange trees. The noisy parakeets chattered away in the branches, as if in debate with the incessant cicadas. Suddenly, they scattered when a raptor cried from above. He squinted up and held his arm out for his pet hunting falcon to land. The bird settled on his wrist, its claws sharp on the sultan’s skin. He smoothed the creature’s feathers with the back of one finger, then moved his hand to let it hop onto the perch on the balcony. ‘Ah, Tugrul,’ he mouthed into the ether with a desert-dry grin as he thought of his formidable uncle, ‘if only I could have tamed you so.’

He heard the courtyard gate creak open, and saw that it was Malik, his son, and young Taylan. Both had travelled here in preparation for what was to come. The pair were of the same age, and firm friends. He watched as they chattered by the fountain, recalling how only a few years ago they had played together with carved wooden toys. Now they talked of war and commanded wings of riders. A wistful smile arose at this.

He thought of those days, many years ago, after his Uncle Tugrul had taken this city from the Daylamids, when he would sit by that very fountain, looking up here and envying his Uncle’s lot. He looked to the shatranj board sitting by the balcony edge. It had remained untouched since that game he had begun with the Haga nearly two years ago in Caesarea. That day, he had sworn to the noble border warrior that the end would have to come for Byzantium. Hubris had fuelled those last words, and he regretted them — or rather, he regretted the truth of them. Like him, the Byzantine emperor was compelled to cement his place on the throne with military success. And so a great battle was coming. The two great empires would have to clash, and the wheels were already in motion.

The skeletal glares and blood-rain of his nightmare refused to let him be.

***

The mustering field outside Isfahan was awash with activity. Every spare patch of dusty land outside the beetling southern walls was packed with soldiers. Artisans and engineers stretched and tested ever-more powerful stone throwers and jabbered about the art of building war towers. Regiments of akhi spearmen clashed in practice bouts, their shields and wooden poles clack-clacking and their skin glistening with sweat under the searing mid-afternoon sun. Bowyers worked in the shade of their tent awnings, hewing, boiling and gluing strips of maple wood, then fitting them to horn grips to fashion new composite bows. Thick packs of ghazi riders swept around timber poles, loosing arrow after arrow at great speed, before sweeping for the beleaguered, arrow-riddled posts, drawing their swords and hacking at them as they sped past. At a cry from their lead rider, they would swarm like a pack of darting swallows, only to reform moments later in a pack or a line. The ghulam lancers practiced galloping in wedges, spears levelled, man and mount encased in iron. When their lances hit the hay-stuffed sacks they used as targets, little remained bar puffs of straw and scraps of hemp.

Alp Arslan walked to the edge of this field. His aged and wise Vizier, Nizam, walked with him. As always, his great, scarred bodyguard, Kilic, followed just a pace or two behind. And today, the two young men from the courtyard walked with him as well. Malik was eager to point out to Taylan the infantry he had already led into battle against the last traces of Fatimid resistance in southern Syria. Taylan seemed oddly quiet — he had been since arriving. Maturity, maybe, or some dark cloud on his mind, perhaps. Very reminiscent of his father, Alp Arslan mused, thinking of Bey Nasir.

‘The secret to holding our hard-won empire is in the blend of those we choose to defend it, Sultan,’ Nizam said. ‘The old lands of Persia provide our heavy cavalry and our siege technology,’ he gestured over to the ghulam and the men working on the stone throwers. ‘The hill peoples of the north and east serve as hardy infantry,’ he nodded to the vast ranks of akhi spearmen. ‘And those of the true Seljuk blood, from the steppes of the north, furnish us with our swift and nimble ghazi cavalry. No one of the factions we have subsumed has too dominant a position in our ranks. That is a mistake that has been made in generations past, when armies have marched against their masters.’

Alp Arslan smoothed at his moustache. ‘A fine strategy, Vizier. I trust you with my life and value your every word. I don’t doubt your wisdom and knowledge in all that is non-martial; you have embellished the cities of the sultanate with fine schools, monuments and palaces, and established an infrastructure of roads, law and trade that will see it last. And I like your policy of limiting the power of the factions within our armies. But I’m not so wary of my army turning against me as I am of the single, hired blades that Yusuf seems to be able to bring within an inch of my throat.’

Kilic hung his head in shame a few feet behind.

‘Ah, that seems to be the lot of any great leader, Sultan. Perhaps you should see the coveting of your golden throne as a measure of your power?’ Nizam replied.

‘Perhaps I should have a timber chair made in its place?’ Alp Arslan countered wryly.

They walked on and Alp Arslan’s gaze hung on the regiment of ghulam and akhi just off of the mustering field. ‘They are ready to ride?’ he asked Nizam.

‘As you decreed, Sultan.’

‘Good, for I am ready to lead them. But equally important is the army I despatch to screen our movements from enemy eyes.’

‘Quite,’ Nizam nodded.

They paused by the ghazi training area, and he noticed Taylan seemed particularly captivated by these riders. ‘You have been training your riders, I hear?’

Taylan started, unaware he was being watched. ‘Sultan,’ he bowed.

‘The future bodes well for you to one day rise to be a bey and lead a ghulam wing, as your father did.’

Taylan shook his head. ‘I have no wish to lead ghulam. The ghazis are a finer weapon — nimble and deadly. They ride mares, and a mare is a Seljuk mount. They fight first with bows, and the bow is a Seljuk weapon. My father always said as much.’

‘Bey Nasir lives on in your heart, doesn’t he?’

Taylan fell silent again. Alp Arslan recalled when the boy was younger and he would come along with Nasir to musterings like this. Young Taylan had hung on his father’s every word, always eager to impress and show what he had learned. But there was always something missing; for all Taylan’s affection, there was no love shown in return from Nasir. Indeed, Nasir had often shouted Taylan down, regardless of the validity of the boy’s comments. His lips played with a dry smile as he remembered his blood-dream.

‘I once loved my Uncle Tugrul unconditionally. But when I was old enough to understand his flaws, I hated him too. It is a curious thing.’

Taylan avoided the sultan’s gaze, seemingly watching the ghazis intently once more, but Alp Arslan saw him wipe at his eye. Then he thought to ask after the boy’s mother, but decided against this, recalling the rumour he had heard regarding her health. This young man would soon be alone, it seemed.

‘Break them, then ride them hard for three years,’ Taylan exclaimed suddenly as his wing of eighty ghazis swept past. ‘Three years pasture after that and then,’ he punched a fist into his palm, ‘then you have a war horse!’

Alp Arslan smiled at this. ‘You have trained them well, it seems.’

Taylan nodded, the look of a wizened general crossing his face — no doubt learned from the beys he had been serving under in this last year. ‘I have put my all into their development. Indeed, they have acquired some new skills, and rediscovered some long forgotten ones too. Skills that could change the fortunes of our army. Do you notice anything about the stirrups, Sultan?’

Alp Arslan studied one rider as he sped past. The leather straps hanging down on each of the horse’s flanks were knotted onto the usual foot-sized iron ring. But the ring was different — flat-bottomed. ‘For stability?’

‘Exactly. A firmer foothold to rise from the saddle than ever before. It was something Bey Nasir planned to try out, before. . ’ his words fell away, then he cupped his hands around his mouth and called out to one of his riders. The rider’s head twisted towards Taylan and he read the command. In the blink of an eye he stood tall on his iron stirrups, continuing to loose arrow after arrow as fast as he had done when seated — one every five or six heartbeats. ‘See how he does not quaver when standing tall?’

Alp Arslan’s eyes narrowed, his attention snagged.

‘And that is not all,’ Taylan continued, pointing to one squat and slightly-built rider with a yellowish complexion. While the other riders clasped their next few arrows in the palms of their draw hands, this man clutched two arrows in each knuckle of his draw-hand.

‘Ah, the mark of an archer who has mastered the reverse shot?’ Alp Arslan grinned, noticing this one wore white falcon feathers on the rim of his helm. ‘I have not seen those feathers in our ranks for many years.’

‘I have reintroduced the custom. This man is the champion of this wing. He can loose an arrow every heartbeat,’ Taylan said, then barked a command to the rider. ‘He and the others with these skills call themselves the White Falcons.’

The rider loosed at a lightning rate, nocking a new arrow from his knuckles in a flurry of dexterity. Thock-thock-thock-thock-thock-thock! The arrows rattled into the timber post one after another, barely a heartbeat between each, splinters flying.

Alp Arslan stopped in his tracks. ‘You have many riders capable of this?’

‘A handful right now, but enough to train the rest,’ Taylan nodded, pointing out the sixteen or so riders amongst his eighty who also wore the white falcon plumes. ‘Soon, I hope to have a whole regiment of them.’

Alp Arslan looked to the aged Bey Gulten on the training area. This grey-bearded old warrior was to lead the next push into Byzantium — leading the army that would screen his own regiments’ movements along the borderlands. Gulten was a fierce old horse, but not one known for his innovation. Perhaps now was the time for new blood to lead. He placed a hand on Taylan’s shoulder.

***

While the sultan strolled off to chat with Nizam, Taylan’s mind spun. For a moment his fears for mother and the swirling gale of angst over his slain father ebbed. Instead, the sultan’s words swam in his mind. He turned to look over his ghazi riders. The swarm swept around again, loosing another quiverful of arrows into the shredded timber post. Thock-thock-thock-thock! All hit home bar a few. While most of the riders had over half a quiver of arrows remaining, the squat champion’s was empty, and he started on his second quiver as they arced round to the far side of the training field.

Taylan made to stride over to his swarm.

But at that moment, Bey Gulten and his riders nearly cut across Taylan’s path, stopping only paces away from trampling him. The old bey’s face creased in a scowl, his nose wrinkling as he glowered down at Taylan. ‘Move back from the training field, boy!’ Gulten snapped, swiping a hand across his path as if swatting a fly. His men chuckled at this.

Gulten had been good to him when he first joined the aged bey’s ranks a year ago. Back then, the mottled old warrior seemed to revel in showing him how things were done. It was when Taylan had started to show innovation in how he led his own eighty that Gulten’s stance had changed. Jealousy had blackened the man’s demeanour like a scudding cloud passing over the sun. Taylan and his riders were soon given the most dangerous sorties — in the vanguard, usually. But when Taylan excelled in these forays, it only served to enrage Gulten further. Then, when he had tried to warn Bey Gulten about the danger of being pressed towards the Cilician Gates last year, the bitter Bey had mocked Taylan in front of the whole army. The very same army that had been shattered the following day in that narrow pass.

‘What are you here for?’ Gulten continued, eyeing the rough, grubby yalma Taylan wore, ‘to shovel horse shit for your eighty cart ponies?’ This brought his men into an even rowdier chorus of laughter.

Taylan felt his blood chill under the glare of so many, all significantly older than him. His throat seemed dry and his tongue reluctant to reply, but he steeled himself and ignored the watching masses, focusing only on Bey Gulten. ‘How many riders do you have here on the field today?’ he asked.

‘I do not answer to boys, now get off the field, whelp!’ Gulten snapped, then nocked and stretched his bow as if to loose at the ground near Taylan’s feet. He trotted forward from his pack, as if to intimidate. His men gasped in anticipation of some clash.

‘Aye, you have plenty of arrows left with which to torment me, unlike my champion rider!’ Taylan scoffed, gesturing to the far side of the field and the rider with the white plume. Bey Gulten’s men shared wide-eyed glances now, some even stifling laughter. Gulten caught wind of this and his bold posture in the saddle faltered as he shot a sour glare over his shoulder at his men. Then, when Gulten came to within a few paces of Taylan, bow nocked and stretched, Taylan found the strength to hold his glower. ‘Close enough for you? I watched you and your men practice. I saw that only a few arrows missed every time you swept past that post. I saw that they were yours, every time.’

Now a low murmur broke into a babble of chuckling as the riders failed to contain their amusement.

‘And you will address me as Bey Taylan from now on,’ Taylan added.

Bey Gulten, mounted and armed yet separated from his pack, suddenly lost his remaining pluck, his bow slackening and his tongue darting out to wet his lips in search of some riposte that Taylan knew would never come.

‘You are a bey now?’ Gulten muttered, glancing over to the spot where Taylan had been in conversation with the sultan just moments ago, his face creasing in confusion. ‘You are my equal?’

‘I am Bey Taylan bin Nasir. And no, I am not your equal. I am your superior. You are to hand over your army to me.’

The man’s face now blanched and his eyes widened. ‘You, but I. . ’ he frowned, looking from Taylan to the side of the training field, where Alp Arslan stood. The sultan gave him a nod that spoke a thousand words. Gulten slid from his saddle and bowed before Taylan, casting a foul gaze to the dust. ‘Very well. Forgive me, Bey Taylan.’

At the same time, the rest of the riders straightened up, shoulders stiffening, throats bulging as they gulped in realisation. Taylan’s eighty riders clustered around them at this point, including the white-feathered champion.

‘Stand up, Bey Gulten. Have your men ready their mounts well for the coming days. I will grant you a quarter of the riders, for you are to go south to tackle the ever-rebellious Fatimids.’ Far, far from me, you dog, he thought. Then he raised his voice so all could hear. ‘The rest of you, groom and feed your mares well, for you are to come northwest with me. You will all be part of the sword that sinks into Byzantium’s flesh.’

The men roared in delight at this, only Gulten was hesitant, his eyes still smouldering with anger and shame.